


What Token Of Love

by Moorishflower



Category: Fringe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-11
Updated: 2010-08-11
Packaged: 2017-10-11 01:24:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/106754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moorishflower/pseuds/Moorishflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alcoholism is a tough trap to get out of, especially when you can't talk to the person you love most about what's driving you to drink. Charlie deals with the aftermath of S1E16 "Unleashed," with a little help (or hindering) from Peter. Warnings for adultery. NOTE: I can't even remember when I wrote this, so...fair warning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Token Of Love

_Tequila shouldn't be going down this smooth,_ Charlie thinks. It's only his first shot of the night, after all – something he figured he deserved after nearly becoming the incubation pod for a bunch of bio-engineered insect larva. And really, when did his life become so fucked up that he can actually _say_ a sentence like that, even in his own head?

Only, when he looks down, there are six shot glasses in front of him, none of which contain tequila, and Charlie can't remember drinking any of them. The bartender is giving him that 'I might have to cut you off' look, though, so he supposes he _must_ have. At some point.

Christ. Fucking _insect larva_.

He forces down another shot for the road and then calls a cab to bring him home. He doesn't want Sonia to worry.

~

It becomes a ritual. He doesn't let it interfere with his work, because he can't afford to – it seems like Walter Bishop's past returns to haunt them every day of every week, but he's drunk (currently) and in a constant state of anxiety these days, so it's understandable if he's exaggerating some things.

_Some_ things.

The kick of it is, Charlie's always known that he's a little…bent. Not bent in the 'dirty cop' kind of way, but bent in the 'watches college football for reasons other than manly camaraderie' kind of way. He comes from a nice, liberal Italia-Germanic family, the majority of which have dealt with worse things than a slightly-less-than-straight son. He married Sonia in the end, and his ma had been just as happy as the time he brought home Joseph, a one-night stand turned temporary boyfriend.

So, the point is, Charlie knows himself. He's not afraid of who he is, and he's not the sort of agent who lets his personal feelings get in the way of his job – when he first met Peter Bishop (and at the time, he had no idea that the guy's father was a _mad scientist_), he had felt the brief flare of attraction, acknowledged it, and moved on. Sure, between then and now there might have been some _looks_, of the kind that his wife has dubbed 'eye-sex,' but there's never any harm in _browsing_ the wares, just so long as you don't _sample_ any.

Food analogies make him hungry. Fortunately, the bar has wings. He pukes them all up later, but they taste fine at first. Story of his life.

~

Sometime around the fourth week of him going to 'The Floppy Monkey' every other night (and surely that has to be the best name for a bar he's ever heard), Charlie realizes that he's sharing the bar with a familiar face. He's face-deep in a bottle of liquor when he catches a glimpse of rakishly good-looking stubble and blue eyes that are kind of bleary and red-rimmed, but still quite stunning. And it's pathetic that he knows exactly what shade of blue Peter's eyes are, so Charlie throws himself back onto the tender mercies of Senor Cuervo and hopes for the best.

They don't talk, not once, but Peter seems to catch on, at some point, because he gravitates from the end of the bar to where Charlie is sitting, and plants himself a safe distance away, the 'we're just manly friends who drink' requisite of one seat. They down shots together, and though Peter looks like he hasn't been trawling the bars for _quite_ as long as Charlie has (in the past few weeks, at least), he holds his tequila like a champion, and three hours later Charlie wakes up in the back seat of a cab with an angry driver shaking him. Shaking him so hard, in fact, that the alcohol in Charlie's body takes offense and decides to make itself known.

Violently. All over the driver's shirt.

~

It's a Tuesday when Broyles calls him into his office, and Charlie takes the time to check himself in the employee restroom, studying his tired eyes in the mirror. His tie is fucked up, but he can't bring himself to care enough to fix it. Sonia has noticed that he's tired, more so than he should be, but he's careful to never let her see him drunk. He's used the 'getting work done at the office' excuse five separate times this week. She probably thinks he's having an affair, and the thought curls his stomach into tight knots.

Dinner. He'll take her out to dinner, and tell her that he's just a little stressed because he's been put on a team that's…different from what he's used to.

Broyles doesn't even say anything when Charlie walks into his office, not for six or seven minutes. They sit there, staring at each other across the huge oak desk, until Charlie blinks and Broyles takes it as surrender.

"You know how I hate to use terms like 'employee efficiency,'" Broyles says. His voice is so soft that Charlie has to lean forward to hear him. "But the quality of your work has been declining for the past few weeks. You're slow, you're unfocused, and that makes you a danger to yourself and everyone you're working with. I don't want the day to come where we have a dead agent on our hands because _you_ were nursing a hangover and didn't see the shot coming."

Charlie blinks again. He can see where Broyles is coming from, he really can, but is it necessary? He hasn't been _that_ sloppy.

Has he?

"Go home," Broyles says, and Charlie feels his blood _freeze_. The dark expression softens. "Go home and rest. This isn't a suspension, it's _advice_. Spend some time with your wife, instead of a bottle."

Charlie tries to remember what Broyles' past was like, whether he was ever married. He can, hazily, recall some office rumors about an ex-wife, but he doesn't know if they're fact, or based in fact, or outright lies. Broyles is a private man, and getting any personal info out of him is like pulling teeth, so normally Charlie doesn't even bother.

He's too tired and achy to bother now, but it's something to think about.

~

Charlie's got more saved-up vacation time than he knows what to do with, so it's easy to take Broyles' 'advice' and head home for a few days. Sonia is overjoyed, and he's struck by how _simple_ her love for him is, how completely uncomplicated. He's been almost totally absent for almost a month now, and she doesn't confront him with accusations of adultery or vice – only tells him that she wishes he could talk to her about his work.

He _wants_ to.

Working with Olivia and the Bishops is like living through an episode of the X-Files every single day of every single week. There's monsters and wacky science and there may or may not be fucking _aliens_, or something similar, at the very least, and it's all screaming to get out of his head because _seriously_, this is the sort of shit you go to see a therapist about. You see these people on shows like COPS, ranting about government mind control and aliens laying eggs in their nasal cavities, and fuck him, but it's all _real_. Hell, maybe everything he thought was a joke or a myth…_is_ real. Unicorns. Fuck.

So, he can't talk to Sonia. He tells her that he's been having a hard couple of weeks, that some people have ended up dead.

"Good guys or bad guys?" It's something she always asks. Normally Charlie finds it endearing, that Sonia is still so far from his work that she can separate the world into such perfectly defined pieces. He doesn't answer for minutes, laying in their bed with Sonia curled up against his side, her fingers running over some of the scars and healing wounds on his chest, his arms. They got Kevlar vests, but that didn't mean shit when you were dealing with mad scientists (other than Walter) with access to crazy advanced technology that could puncture your lungs, _only_ your lungs, from fifty yards away.

"Both," he says finally, because how else do you count people who were trapped and confused and lost, and they just so happened to have world-destroying powers?

He can relate. If not to the 'world-destroying powers' bit.

~

He manages to keep himself out of the bars for a couple of weeks, right up until a woman spontaneously combusts and Olivia starts getting scarily quiet. He tries, several times, to get her to talk, but no dice. But he can tell that, whatever it is, it has to do with Walter Bishop, which is just _awesome_. He knew, logically, that Broyles' 'Pattern' had been fucking up Olivia's life long before it ever reached out and touched _his_, but it's even harder to see, now that he at least partially knows the reason behind her mental anguish. She hasn't been sleeping – he can tell, because she's developing rings under her eyes and her hands shake when she isn't concentrating on keeping them still.

Charlie goes out to the bar, not for himself, but for Olivia. He tells himself that and somehow it makes things a bit more okay than before.

It makes sense, then, that he runs into Peter again. He's suspected for a while that their silent meetings in shadowy dives aren't by coincidence, and now he's certain, because Peter doesn't drink, only watches him, sitting disturbingly close. Charlie barely has time to down two Poppers before Peter is forcefully grabbing his arm and dragging him out of the bar.

Charlie doesn't protest. He doesn't know why.

So Peter leads him to this hole-in-the-wall motel that's decorated with a repeating fish motif. Charlie's only had the two shooters, but all the hanging trout and pictures of gaping, red-lined gills are making him nauseous. He's not a fish sort of guy. Peter doesn't seem to mind, only leads him down the short hallway (complete with an absurd, Dadaist picture of a guy who's apparently fishing in a lake of gold using his shirt for a net) until, finally, they're in a room that only has _one_ trout and _one_ shitty angling-themed picture. There are clothes on the floor, a thick winter jacket draped over the foot of the bed, and the place smells, underneath that weird motel funk, like Peter.

"Walter can get," he starts to explain, and then hesitates. Probably not wanting to say anything bad about his father, after all the guy's done, even after everything he's put them through. Charlie understands – as much as he loves Olivia, this mess she's gotten him entangled in is frightening. He'll never speak ill of her, but sometimes, _sometimes_, he thinks he life would have been better off if she had stayed away.

Charlie can hear, one or two doors over, someone loudly playing 'You Shook Me All Night Long' on their computer or radio. _Classy_.

"If you're going to tell me I'm drinking too much, you're a bit late," is what he says, instead of commenting on the horrific décor or their neighbor's choice in late-night lullaby. "I realized that myself a while ago. Don't you have something to be doing? Hunting down alien monsters."

"Very funny," Peter says, and takes a step closer, then another, until they're almost touching. Charlie's breath catches. _Sonia,_ he thinks. _She's waiting for you at home. All smooth skin and gorgeous hair, and her hips, her smile. Maybe wearing that green cami you bought her. What'd she call it? 'Spring green.'_

"Look," Peter says, and raises a hand so he can scrub it back through his hair. It's getting longer, and his stubble is more pronounced than usual. Maybe he didn't shave today. "I just wanted to tell you that…I know what you're going through."

"Walter's your father," Charlie points out, and Peter snorts.

"Not like that," he counters. "I mean, yeah, everything that Walter does is basically a weird shitstorm of insanity, but that's not what I meant. A couple of years ago I was in Iraq – it was right after the war was declared, but I had a client I made a promise to, so I went." Charlie doesn't ask, doesn't want to _know_, what kind of client Peter had. He keeps quiet. "So I'm in Samarra, and all these tanks and fuckin' Hummers are rolling through, coming out of Baghdad, heading for Kirkuk and Mosul and God knows where else. Trying to find terrorists, ending up making them instead. I'm sitting outside this bakery, it's about seven-thirty in the morning, and this _kid_ comes out of the house across the street. He's wearing a really thick jacket, and all around me people start ducking down or heading inside. And this kid just…_runs_. Runs for this line of soldiers and cars going straight through the city, and throws himself as close as he can get."

Peter rubs the back of his neck, not looking lost in memory, not exactly, but he's wearing an expression that's a little sad, a little angry. An uncomfortable expression that Charlie instinctively doesn't want to look at, because it feels too personal, too raw.

"I'd never seen a suicide bomber before," Peter says slowly, "but that's what he did. He couldn't have been older than sixteen – one minute he was there, and the next." He shrugged. "Gone. Big crater in the middle of the street, and me with debris and blood in my hair. People started coming out of their houses, getting out from under tables, and the day went on. What I'm trying to say is, there's awful shit out there in the world, and…you've already seen _tons_ of it. People killing each other for no reason, for the wrong reasons…Every day. This isn't any different."

"There were people I could talk to," Charlie says softly. "My wife…"

"There are people you can talk to _now_. Me, Olivia, Broyles. Hell, Walter, if you feel like wading through a couple hours of conversation about his favorite desserts." Peter's gaze slides downward, and Charlie is suddenly, painfully aware of the fact that he hadn't even changed out of his suit before he headed for the bar – his tie is partially undone and the first two buttons of his shirt are popped. His pants and suit jacket are wrinkled. He must look like the worst kind of mess.

"Maybe you're the kinda guy who doesn't need to talk." There's an almost subsonic vibration in Peter's voice, now. It takes Charlie a minute to recognize it, because it's been so long since he heard it from anyone but himself – not since college, certainly – but he gets it, eventually. He wants to take a step back, but his legs feel way too heavy, and he wonders if, maybe, Walter and Olivia somehow missed a couple of freaky insect larvae and he's only now feeling the effects.

"I'm married," he warns, and the look that Peter gives him is so scathing and annoyed that Charlie almost flinches.

"I'm not asking for a fucking _ring_," he snaps. "I'm trying to _help_. Correct me if I'm wrong: you feel like the world you used to know is gone. Like everything you love is in danger of falling into this weird Twilight Zone you've been introduced to, and so you can't let anyone know about all the good you're doing. So you don't tell anyone, you don't show anyone, and at the end of every day you still remember being eaten alive by monsters, so you drink, hoping that you'll forget while you sleep. Well, tough. You're not gonna forget. This shit is going to be with you for the rest of your life, and you can either deal with it or let it send you over the edge."

Peter takes another step, and now they're touching, chest to chest. Charlie imagines he can feel Peter's heartbeat through the layers of their clothes – he _knows_ he can feel Peter's hand closing around the back of his neck, warm and callused in places that speak of blood and guns.

"So stop being a dick," Peter murmurs. "Get this out of your system and go back to your wife. Make her happy again."

And it's that realization – that he and Sonia haven't made love for over a month – that cements the idea in his head. He can never tell his wife. He can never tell any of the friends he's made in the Bureau, aside from Olivia. But he can tell _Peter_, can tell him with his hands and his mouth and his body, even if the words always refuse to come out, there's still _this_. It's why he's unusually soft as he reciprocates Peter's gesture, fitting his palm to a neck that's higher up than he's used to, and _Jesus_, but he's never quite realized how tall Peter is, compared to him. It's only about four inches of difference, but it makes things feel a hell of a lot stranger when he has to lean _up_ to kiss someone.

Kissing Peter is nothing like kissing Sonia. It's also nothing like kissing any of the men he'd slept with during his college years – when he was younger he had been obsessed with his own machismo, had felt uncomfortable with his bisexuality, and had justified his wants by seeking out the prettiest, most effeminate men possible. He's not used to the scrape of stubble or the way Peter's shoulders flare out like wings to contain his broader chest. He's not used to the way Peter's hands move, first cupping Charlie's cheeks, thumbs touched to the arch of the zygomatic bones, then down to the hollow of his throat. The calluses feel odd, but not unpleasant. When their mouths open, he can taste mint, and the very faint remnants of beer.

"That's good," Peter breathes into him. The music from the room next door has quieted, and all Charlie can hear is their soft gasps for air, and the susurrus of their clothes brushing together. Charlie has the idea that he must taste like a Mexican whorehouse, all tequila and sweat and desperation, but Peter takes it all and doesn't complain, only pushes him back until Charlie's legs hit the edge of the motel bed and he goes down and down and down.

This, too, is different. Charlie's not used to tenderness with anyone but his wife – Sonia had been the first to inspire that desire to _protect_, and he maintains that it's one of the reasons why they ended up together. She's a strong woman, and he liked the challenge of getting her to let go for a while, letting him take care of her. Now it's _him_ being taken care of, and he's not sure what to do with it. What does Peter expect of him? He can barely remember the last time he gave someone a blowjob, and now he's committing _adultery_, for fuck's sake, and everything is too complicated, nowhere near how it used to be…

"Stop thinking," Peter says sharply, and Charlie is surprised to find, when he looks down, that his shirt buttons are all undone and Peter is looking at his naked chest like he's at a buffet and he doesn't know where to start. "Focus on me. On what I'm doing."

What he's doing is lowering his head to mouth a stripe down Charlie's torso, hot little flicks of his tongue and sharp nips that are easily soothed by the softness of his lips. In contrast, the scrape of Peter's stubble is a point of texture that makes Charlie's toes curl. He wonders if this is how Sonia feels, when they make love on days where he hasn't had time to shave.

When Peter deftly pops the button on Charlie's pants, lowers the zip with agonizing care, he realizes that he can't object any more. He's doing this, as wrong as it might seem, he's putting himself in this with everything he has. He lifts his hips when Peter tugs at the legs of his trousers, sighs broken and wordless pleasure when he lowers his mouth to suck at Charlie's right hipbone, arches impatiently when Peter seems perfectly content to stay there for the rest of the night. And not once does he think of Sonia – not once. He thinks he should feel guilty about that, but all Charlie can focus on is the bizarre sensation that he's being _taken care of_. That he doesn't have to worry about anything, at least, not right now.

There are times and places where words are required, but this isn't one of them. When Peter shucks off his jacket and pulls his shirt over his head, Charlie doesn't have the presence of mind to tell him that he's long and lean and tan and _gorgeous_, so he reaches up and rubs his hand through the thick curls across Peter's chest. Charlie has been mostly smooth all his life, so it's sexier than it has any right to be. Better still, when Peter lays himself down so that they're pressed chest to chest, and the scratch of them rubbing together is both foreign (_it's been so many years_) and almost unbearably _good_.

_Pants,_ Charlie thinks, because he's got his briefs and the slipping remains of his shirt, and his trousers tangled around his ankles because he's still wearing his shoes, and really, the situation doesn't seem fair. Peter still has his jeans on, for example. So Charlie kicks at his shoes until they fly off and thunk against the wall somewhere, then slides his hands over the curve of Peter's biceps, slides them down and down until he can fumble with Peter's fly with his legs still all tangled and his shirt hampering his movements, but finally, _finally_ he pops the button and reaches inside to find, _oh_, heat, and the smear of precome across his wrist.

"You go commando," he says, and can't keep himself from laughing because it coincides with his mental image of Peter so _perfectly_. Peter grunts, shoves his hips forward, demanding and unabashed.

"It works out," he grunts. "I like the briefs."

The briefs aren't doing much to hide how hard Charlie is, but if anything Peter seems flattered by how fast he's reacted to the whole situation. Charlie realizes, belatedly, that Peter must have been _waiting_ for this to happen – had he been joining him all those times in the bar because he was planning this? But for that, the offer was made in camaraderie, self-serving as it might be, and Charlie can't bring himself to be as angry as he should be.

The bite of irritation only serves to make him harder. Jesus fuck, it was like being a teenager again.

"No condoms," Peter sighs, "no lube." Like Charlie cares, because Peter yanks down his brief and then spits into his palm, holds his hand out for Charlie to do the same. He hasn't jerked off with this method since he was fifteen and unbearably horny all the time. As soon as he complies, though, Peter cups their dicks together and Charlie realizes that this is absolutely _nothing_ like masturbating alone in his room, because having someone else's palm against you makes all the difference in the world. He jerks his hips up, rubbing their spit-slick cocks together, and Peter matches his sighs and wordless groans, wiggling his hips in what Charlie blurrily recognizes as an attempt to get his own jeans off and away. Peter never took his shoes off, though, and his legs are caught. Charlie thinks about hand and leg cuffs, arches his back and tilts his head as a surge of pleasure and want uncoils around the base of his spine. Peter takes the opportunity to lower his mouth to Charlie's neck.

"No marks," Charlie manages, and Peter's mouth pauses against the shelf of his jaw. Charlie reaches down and grabs hold of Peter's wrist, stilling its movement until he feels a small nod against his skin.

He's doing this, but he'll damn himself first before Sonia ever finds out. He loves his wife, and she doesn't deserve this – but hiding it is the best he can do.

"Thinking again," Peter mumbles, and twists his wrist in a way that has Charlie snarling and yanking his hand back up, grabbing hold of Peter's chin and pulling his face up so he can suck and nip at a stubbled jaw, a soft mouth. Peter slackens above him, opens up, his grip just as firm and hot and wet, fingers sliding down to trail over the base of Charlie's dick, lower and back, pressing hard just behind his balls, and Charlie sees fucking _stars_. It's been so long since he bottomed for anyone, he can count on one hand the times it's happened, but it's exactly what his body needs, and he finds himself hurtling over the edge of oblivion without ever having seen it coming. His cock twitches against his stomach, striping his ribcage with ribbons of spunk like he's been straining towards orgasm for _weeks_ instead of ten minutes or so. He closes his eyes and shoves his hips up, feeling Peter's other hand sliding through the come on his stomach and chest, milking him through the pleasure as his gasps and shakes. The fingers pressing against his perineum have vanished, and when Charlie finally opens his eyes he can see why.

Peter's fisting his dick, sitting up on his knees and looking down at Charlie with hooded eyes and parted lips. His tongue darts out to wet them, candy pink, and Charlie feels a surge of _want_ that's, Jesus, he just fucking _came_. Peter's cock is flushed a dark red; he's so hard it looks kinda painful. He looks like he's reaching, too, but falling just short, so Charlie takes Peter's other hand, the one covered in his jizz, and folds their fingers together, squeezing.

Peter looks down at their clasped hands, biting his lips, and comes, and comes, and comes, adding his semen to Charlie's, and they're both going to have to take epic showers after this, but when Peter comes he does it with his eyes open, ethereally blue, and his mouth open in a gasp that sounds, achingly, like Charlie's name.

~

They don't lie too long together – they don't really have that luxury – but Peter spends some time telling Charlie it'll be all right afterwards. He doesn't break down into guilty sobs; he's not that hypocritical. Charlie knows perfectly well what he just did, and he'll own it, but he just can't help feeling that, somehow, Sonia will find out, and she won't understand.

He doesn't want to tell her about his crazy, screwed-up life. He didn't want to when he worked with violent criminals, and he doesn't want to now that he works with mad scientists and monsters.

"Then don't tell her," Peter says. He lounges on the motel bed, idly swiping semen from his fingers with wads of toilet paper. "She doesn't need to know."

Except that's not how marriage is supposed to work. One of the vows he had made was one of _honor_, and this doesn't feel like the sense of trust and respect that Sonia deserves.

When Charlie leaves, it's with the sense that he has exchanged one burden of silence for another, and he's torn between feeling guilty and feeling relieved.

He tries to go back to the bar he frequented, about a week later. But when he steps in, Peter isn't there waiting for him.

So he leaves.


End file.
